Comment by SequoiaHope | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SequoiaHope | Hacker News Reader

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Sex parties are fun!

I’m in the “embrace sex, skip the shame” boat. In the Bay Area there’s a really solid polyamory community. I’ve been reading the books and working on my own communication issues and anxieties for a good 15 years now and at this point things flow so smoothly. I have so many people in my life I’m on a kissing basis with. It’s so lovely! I’m surrounded by genuine connection and affection. Me and my community have good communication. No one ever gets jealous as we’re all consensually dating a bunch of people. (I’m mostly “solo poly” these days.) I have some regular partners I share more structured, intentional loving and intimate connection with. I have cute friends I go on bike rides with and then kiss and cuddle while taking a break at the waterfront. I get invited to all kinds of functions. Sex is a source of genuine joy for me. I get tested once every two or three months and I have a clear communication protocol and safer sex practice I use with new people.

Amongst all this, porn is just a way to get my motor running. An arousing way to engage in self play and to build energy for what weekend adventures await. Or, if I’m so inclined, a way to ease my own stress and experience some physical release of energy and ease stress.

I’ve heard this notion before - that people who suffer from “porn addiction” often have an unhealthy relationship with sex, often coming from Christian puritanical views and shame of the self and the body. Drop the shame! Learn to love yourself. Learn to communicate your needs and desires. Be with your community. Have fun! I am. :)

Ah, so true.

I'm sure you're reading some of the other comments to me.

For example, I am married. And my partner has similar views as me. And there's nothing at all like looking at a man or woman, looking at my partner and a sly grin and nod, and we both go ask together!

But the most bile and hatred I see come from the puritanical groups of Christianity. They cannot only fail to understand, but I get moralized the whole time as well. Like, try it before you knock it?

And I'm even getting flack for recommending STD testing. Some diseases can hide, like herpes and HIV. I'd rather know for me and my lovers, rather than hurt them. And, its not much different than a covid test - keep the people around you safe.

There is nothing wrong with your point of view. But does it scale? We got here after thousands of years of societies shaped by religion and its various concepts of family.

Can your alternative produce a strong society that can survive external threats? Maybe it can, but intuitively I think it can't. And what would happen, then, is that a society based on polyamory would be destroyed and/or conquered by others who believe in traditional families.

I'm not saying that societies that preach traditional families are good or bad, just that they have a long history of surviving.

There are so many inbuilt assumptions in your comment it’s hard to even formulate a reply. Should the way I relate to other people be based on predictions of what makes a “strong society” or does a strong society flow from well adjusted people? Is a society of shame filled serial monogamists stronger than one of sexually liberated polyamorists? Is it healthier to expect one person to provide all of your romantic and sexual needs while suppressing urges to engage emotionally and sexually with others, or is a focus on identifying our individual needs, communicating those to others, and operating with informed consent and mutually agreed upon relationships better?

There’s so many things I think monogamous culture could learn from polyamorous people. Even if you’re only dating one person at a time, learning to deeply understand your own needs, set boundaries, and communicate clearly with others (mandatory skills in functional polyamory) are super useful skills for monogamous people.

Also who is to say that society lives and dies by who were kissing and sleeping over with and fucking? We also have a society that is obsessed with selfish consumption while an increasing number of people are excluded from our economic abundance, suffering at the outskirts. To me that’s way more likely to destroy society than who I’m sleeping with.

Our views are so far apart, I think we can't have a productive discussion in an online forum. Suffice to say, I don't have a problem with you living your life as you please.

I just intuitively believe that if enough people think like you, there will no longer be a society that can support the existence of people like you. I can't prove this hypothesis.

I hear that. What I can say is that on the ground, this community I am in is thriving and struggling just like everyone else. We have jobs and worries and families. We buy stuff and pay taxes. We’re a mixed group of techies and poor artists and we help each other out and try to be good citizens and help out our broader community.

From my lived experience in this community, absolutely nothing says to me this is some unstable condition. Everyone who is in this community is in it because they are happier this way, and there’s a lot of happy people in this community. Depending on how you slice it our community isn’t for everyone but that’s okay.

So I hear that you have that hypothesis. I can report from the ground people are happy and productive.

If you think there’s something specific that would lead to some sort of societal problem I would be interested to hear about it.

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